Kolkata, March 24 (IANS) The Trinamool Congress on Tuesday accused the Election Commission of India (ECI) of appointing the police officer husband of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader from neighbouring Bihar as the police observer for four Assembly constituencies in minority-dominated Malda district for the forthcoming two-phase Assembly polls.

In a joint press conference, state Education Minister Bratya Basu and party MP Partha Bhowmik claimed that the wife of the said Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of Bihar cadre, Jayant Kant, is a BJP leader.

At the press conference, the two Trinamool leaders showed some pictures of Jayant Kant along with his wife, and also some pictures where the cop’s wife is seen at daisies along with prominent BJP leaders from Bihar.

IANS, however, was not in a position to check the authenticity of the photographs displayed by Basu and Bhowmik.

"The four Assembly constituencies for which the sad police officer from Bihar had been made the police observer are Mothabari, Baishnabnagar, Manikchak, and Sujapur. All four assembly constituencies are adjacent to Bihar. The wife of the police officer is again a BJP leader from the Jamui area in Bihar, which is very close to the state border with Malda. So our question is how a police officer, whose wife is a BJP leader, will perform in an unbiased manner. The ECI is deliberately deputing such officers as poll observers to give the BJP an advantage in the forthcoming West Bengal assembly polls,” Basu said.

On Monday, the ECI ordered the replacement of as many as 73 returning officers in West Bengal. Bhowmik attacked the Commission on this issue and claimed that it is to be seen whether BJP-confident officers had been sent as replacements.

There was neither any reaction from the ECI nor from the BJP on allegations raised by the Trinamool leaders so far.

--IANS

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